The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1887-05-18
THE WOMEN.
A Couple of Columns Devoted
Solely to the Fair Daugh-
tiers of Eve.
Embracing a Few SeasOnable Hints
About the New Styles In
Feminine Dress.
Sorrows of Spring Sewing.


The necessity of fashionable raiment is
one of the ills human flesh is heir to, be-
queathed us by Grandma Eve, who re-
sided in the Garden of Eden.
When the time of replenishing meets us,
we tragically cry anew: Why didn't she
let we'll enough alone? Or why was any
Nher fashion than fig-leaves ever thought
OF! As a permanent apparel they would
have proved a contamination most devoutly
= to be wished as an alienation OF oil worry
and soul narrowing anxiety.
Then when Mrs. Van Coast ordered from
Worth, she would expect it to be like Mrs.
Jones. who had sufficient lucre to do like
wise. The two ladies could then have
passed one another with smiling salutations
and cheerful remarks about the weather, in
stead of the former giving the latter such
annihilating looks as to cause meek Mrs.
Jones TO faint, and both together raising
such ferment in the surrounding atmos-
phere as to make the state of the weather q
dangerous topic for general conversation.
But such an herbaceous diet is not and
probably never will be in style again, so
We must meet the issues of this time of
the year.
Everything about the spring season has
been greatly overrated. She resembles a
person whose charms have been so greatly
-overestimated that when we do meet her
she Is SO lacking in those superlative quail
tiles we cIn not appreciate the good attrl-
butes she really does possess. The poets
have most of this sin to answer for. They
have pa nted her portrait and fiattered her
so prodigiously no season could live up to
such a reputation.
For their ethereal mildness she substi-
,tutes rather penetrating breezes, and when
blade of grass appears, accompanied by
modest violet, they languidly look around,
timidly shrink back, and do not arouse
much enthusiasm, because so apparently
out of place.
But close upon their steps come the all
important qul ries: What is the world wear
A ing? And have we anything left over from
last year!
Thoreau says "our melting season, like
that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our
lives;" and, indeed, so many of us find it,
unless our purse is bottomless or like the
purse of Fortunatus.
Old clothes may be comfortable and
economical even possess valuable associa-
tons, but they are not inspiring.
Arabelas tiny corn may be most COM
Portable in her old pair of boots; she may
have walked miles in them with her best
sweetheart, and it may make sad inroad
into her sentiment and pocket allowance to
replace them; but how can she take OFF her
winter arctics and enjoy dashing prom
enade In them at this season. Her trim
figure and bright eyes would prove but
loves labor lost with such tapping accom-
paniments.
An old hat, with q languid feather, and
an old coat that has covered so many
smothered heartbeats, will lose their air
of original responsibility. We intuitively
yearn for that self complacency which
comes with the knowledge that We are as
freshly dressed as our neighbors.
There are only few persons who are
insane enough to dislike new clothes-who
insist that new shoes pinch, new gloves
are inventions of fiends, and that new
dresses give them q sense of overpowering
Nresponsibility--of principal invested In
stock that pays no interest.
Poor things! Yet how much we endure
on account of new clothes; what tedious
hours of shopping, of matching colors;
what snubs from statesmen who are annoyed
at the brevity of our purses, and who de-
. spise us for our love of simplicity, or, it
\ may be for our desire TO be gorgeous with
out the means; what discouragementsf from
friends who shake their heads over our
purchases, and, sometimes worse than all 4,
our own bitter uncertainty of results.
What agony until we are certain the new
gown is we'll fitted and draped, the bonnet
becoming, the gloves will not split, and the
whole toilet remain in style reasonable
length of time.
But the greatest of all these trials is the
snubbing you have to endure at the hands
of your dressmaker. She knows she has
YOU in her power. She snubs you If you
family dissent from any of her dictations.
You must, if she so suggests, have your
frock made like Miss Smiths, even if you
are only shadowy reproduction of Bern
hardt in figaro and Miss Smith weighs q
hundred and eighty.
She has no conscience. She will SOL
EMMY protest you shall have your dress in
exactly two weeks after you give her your
material, and, at the end of four, is out
ragged that you insist upon seeing some re-
suits.
But the dressmaker or modiste, as she
delights to be called, in her own apart
ments is cherubic, compared TO the indi-
vidual who comes to your house to sew and
cut.
She comes at what hour suits her con-
venience; her demeanor impresses you
with the idea that she is accustomed to
houses and people far superior to those
your abode sets forth You are literally on
u pins and needles-for the floors are strewn
= with both--for fear you will offend heI
majestic highness.
ANY woman would much rather send all
- her sewing to be done away from home,
= but it is much more economical to have
these sewers by the day.
She is disconnected and irritable, you
would judge, from the way in which she
Jerks her needle and thread through your
goods, although she regards you with q
countenance of placidity itself when you
make any suggestions regarding Innings
thread, buttons or style, receiving then
with gentle rising of the eyebrows which
makes you want to retire into inane speech.
lessness.
Then, too, the men of the family always
consider the seamstress their sworn en-
envy. They seem to think she was invented
only to disturb them, much after the same
fashion with which they look upon the
scrub women and calciminers of house
Al cleaning time.
- This places you between two fires. YoU
must conciliate both; never allow her tC
hear him grumbling in the morning about
her presence, or her royal highness would
up and off, leaving you in the midst of youl
mutilated finery. Nor allow him in thu
evening to be worried by any of her litter o.
needles and scraps.
If you escape, through skillful feminine
engineering, without dire disaster overtak
inc the enterprise, you are greater than III